Twitter Trends of the Week, Vol 97

There are over 300 million tweets sent from around the world every day. Because Twitter has become such a major source for global news and conversations, we pull weekly Twitter trends to discover what the world is talking about. Here are some of the highlights:

Mudslide

A tragic mudslide caught the Washington town of Oso and all of the United States by surprise last week when it claimed the lives of at least 20 people. Rescuers continue to comb the area nearly a week after the slide consumed a square mile of land in rural Washington state. President Barack Obama asked Americans to pray for the devastated town, which is located an hour outside of Seattle.

Though the story was a tragic one, the video of a dog found in the rubble days after the event touched the heart of Twitter users around the country. People took to Twitter to spread the news and offer their condolences to the families who lost loved ones.

GWAR

Dave Brockie, the lead singer of the trash metal band GWAR passed away in his home in Virginia this past week. GWAR earned a global following due to its outrageous alien-inspired costumes and stage antics. Fans across the world took to Twitter to mourn the singer who had been entertaining them since 1984. The band held its 4th annual GWAR-B-Q at a water park in Richmond, VA last summer and released its own canned craft beer for the occasion. The band has said that it will continue with the 5th annual GWAR-B-Q for 2014, in honor of their fallen singer.

Conscious Uncoupling

Some people break up or split up or call it quits, but when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin ended their marriage of more than a decade, they referred to it as a conscious uncoupling. Instead of using the words divorce or seperation, which Paltrow and Martin believe are too harsh and traumatic, the term conscious uncoupling has been in the Tweets of many this week. Most were confused by what this actually meant, the only place that gave a good definition was Paltrow’s Goop site (which crashed momentarily after the couple’s statement went out).

Hashtags such as #consciouslyuncouple were abundant on Twitter and actually ended up becoming viral as more people discussed the separation and wondered: “What does this even mean?”

Kim Jong Un Haircuts

A report this week claiming the North Korean government now forces male college students to get Kim Jong Un’s haircut went viral this week, but no one is really sure if this is true or false. The story originated with Free Radio Asia, a news agency based in Washington, D.C. Of course, this is something that will get the Twittersphere talking. Shortly thereafter meme’s and hashtags were created, jokes were made, and Mashable even came up with a “9 Celebrities Rocking Kim Jong Un’s Hairdo” list.

Although this hair trend is making a massive buzz on social media, recent visitors to North Korea say they haven’t seen any evidence of this kind of mass haircutting.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The first trailer for the 2014 film remake of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released this week. Director Michael Bay called on frequent collaborator Megan Fox to play female lead April. The trailer was welcomed with mixed reviews. While many are excited to see a remake to this childhood favorite, others are unsure about the more bulked up, sinister look of the TMNT. Within one day, the YouTube video has already seen nearly 8 million views.

Although the preview showed us that this film will be full of explosions, flashing lights and smashed buildings (very Michael Bay), we didn’t see any turtles skateboarding. And we certainly didn’t see any pizza.

That TMNT movie looks nothing like the old movies, that looked nothing like the cartoon, that looked nothing like the comics.

#youtubebannedinturkey

The Turkish government doubled down on its efforts to silence critics online by banning YouTube. The move came just 24 hours after a court in the capital ordered the telecom authority to lift its ban on Twitter and three days before important local elections. The Google-owned social video service has been used by opponents of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for distributing audio recordings revealing the administration’s inner-workings, most recently of a conversation between officials about possible military operations in Syria.

The hashtag #youtubebannedinturkey immediately went viral, and trended in countries all over the world.